FWRD’s Elyse Walker Has a Closet Full of Next Season’s Best Designer Pieces

The fashion director behind one of the biggest retail sites tells us what it’s like to shop for herself. Los Angeles.

For better or for worse (it depends on if you’re asking our wallets or us), online shopping has become part of our everyday routine. At any given time, we have at least one open tab in our internet browser dedicated to our virtual shopping cart. But if we want to blame someone other than ourselves for impulse-shopping and spending, we would blame Elyse Walker for making it so hard to resist.

With her boutique, Elyse Walker, and as the fashion director of FWRD by Elyse Walker, she’s curated an insane selection of established and emerging designers in a variety of price points, with an extensive range of basic staples and over-the-top pieces. (Try saying that ten times fast.) Clicking through the site feels exactly like walking through our favorite boutique, with the only difference being that online the space is never-ending with racks that go on for all eternity in cyberspace. Oh, and just in case you happen to prefer your shopping experience to happen IRL, she’s got you covered there too, with multiple brick-and-mortar locations. And of course, as expected, the same thing can be said of Walker’s L.A. home, which is filled with artwork, her insanely cute dog, and every sparkly thing we ever wished we owned.

Walker not only has an encyclopedic knowledge of designers, but she has all the shopping advice we never knew we needed. Remember the last time something was sold out in your size? Walker suggests going up a size: “Sometimes we need a bigger size–it doesn’t matter!” Or what about the last time you invested in a trend you didn’t really love? Walker suggests forgetting about it entirely: “If you put it on and it feels like you’re wearing someone else’s clothing, you’re not going to wear it well.” Since we’ve already been in her home and gone through her closet (actually, we’ve gone through it twice now), we think she’ll be totally cool with us adding her to speed dial so we can text during every fashion emergency we have–that’s cool, right, Elyse?

Click through to see how the woman behind one of the biggest retail sites shops for herself and read why she’ll never really wear heels, what it was like to buy her first pair of Prada shoes, and the one piece of business advice that changed her mind-set.